The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown sponsored a women's conference on September 10, 2022. Below are excerpts of the keynote addresses from Kelly Wahlquist, founder of the national women's ministry WINE: Women in the New Evangelization, and a testimonial from Colleen Scariano, co-founder of SoulCore, a movement born from the desire to nourish body and soul through prayer and core-strengthening exercises.
Kelly Wahlquist
Kelly Wahlquist is the founder of the national women’s ministry WINE: Women In the New Evangelization, the Director for the Archbishop Flynn Catechetical Institute in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and a contributing writer for Catholicmom.com.
Kelly is the author of “Created to Relate: God’s Design for Peace & Joy”, which encourages and inspires women to live fully their beautiful God-given gifts for building relationships, and editor of “Walk in Her Sandals: Experiencing the Passion of Christ through the Eyes of Women” and “Gaze Upon Jesus: Experiencing Christ’s Childhood through the Eyes of Women”, which are innovative collaborative works that allow women to enter into their relationship with Jesus in the way in which they were created to – as women.
Kelly travels the country speaking at Catholic conferences and retreats and leads women’s pilgrimages (WINE & Shrine) through Italy. She resides with her husband Andy and their three children in Minnesota.
Colleen Scariano & Deanne Miller
Colleen Scariano grew up in a close Irish, Catholic family as the fifth of six children. As tragedies continued to take family members from her quickly and unexpectedly, including both her parents, the rosary became a source of healing and peace. Colleen began to pray the rosary while running, and found the combination a beautiful time of prayer integrating both body and soul. A friend suggested to her adding core exercise to her regimen, inspiring the incorporation of the rosary with core strengthening and functional movement.
Deanne Miller, another close friend of Colleen, found her own healing of both body and soul through a similar combination of prayer and activity as she struggled with disordered eating and excessive exercise. Colleen shared her inspiration with Deanne, a fellow devotee to the Blessed Mother who also had a background in fitness instruction. Together, they began to develop a program to integrate body and soul in prayer while discovering the beauty of the rosary, and SoulCore was born.
SoulCore is now offered as youth, college, and adult programs, with Discovery Retreats offered to those looking to become program leaders themselves in order to launch classes in more locations across the country and around the world.